2025 SESSION OF THE COLORADO GENERAL ASSEMBLY
OVERVIEW
The 2025 legislative session adjourned on Wednesday, May 7, after 120 days spent negotiating complex legislation, navigating unexpected twists and turns, and achieving several gratifying wins for the property & casualty (P&C) insurance industry.
For the last seven years, Democrats have controlled both chambers of the General Assembly as well as the Governor’s Office. During the recently concluded legislative session, Democrats held a 43-22 majority, one vote shy of a supermajority. The Republicans picked up three seats in the 2024 elections, but the slightly smaller Democratic caucus was less divided between the moderate and progressive wings of the party as compared to previous years. Especially when it came to reacting to the Trump Administration, House Democrats stuck together on hot-button issues like abortion and guns, while House Republicans lacked power beyond their ability to filibuster these bills and slow down the process. However, on many matters impacting the P&C insurance industry and other business groups, there were examples where moderate Democrats broke from their more progressive colleagues to find solutions in the middle.
In the Senate, Democrats held a 23-12 majority, also one vote shy of a supermajority and the same makeup as the past two years. The number proved meaningful as the Senate Republicans once again united to defeat a harmful referred constitutional amendment on the Senate floor. Additionally, the Senate Democrats cast some surprising votes this session, and at times we saw moderate Senate Democrats – and even far-left Democrats – break with their party to oppose key P&C insurance legislation.
Another interesting dynamic of the 2025 legislative session was that almost one-third of members were newly elected or appointed. The session began with eight new Senators and 22 new Representatives. A few weeks into the session, former Rep. Iman Jodeh (D) was appointed to fill the vacancy left by Sen. Janet Buckner (D), which left yet another vacancy in the House that was filled by Rep. Jamie Jackson (D) mid-session. Sen. Matt Ball (D) was also appointed to fill the seat of resigning Sen. Chris Hansen (D); and after Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis (D) resigned amid controversy a few weeks into the session, a vacancy committee appointed Sen. Katie Wallace (D) to fill her seat. The large number of new legislators created a lot of need – as well as opportunity – to educate members about the challenges facing the P&C insurance industry in Colorado.
The overarching issue this session was the State’s massive budget shortfall. With $1.3 billion needed to close the gap and pass a balanced budget, the Joint Budget Committee faced difficult choices on where to cut, while the rest of the General Assembly considered any bill with a significant fiscal note to be dead on arrival. Naturally, dynamics at the federal level also influenced the discourse and tenor at the Capitol, as legislators attempted to navigate the Trump Administration’s rapid-fire Executive Orders and predict where the Administration might go next.
Overall, 2025 was an exceptionally busy session for the P&C insurance industry. We saw complicated bills creating enterprises to fund hail mitigation, reinsurance for home losses due to wildfire, and safety measures for pedestrian and wildlife crossings fail to make it over the finish line. At the same time, bills related to accuracy of risk models and a renewed effort to address construction defects passed and have been signed into law. Additionally, Governor Jared Polis proposed converting Pinnacol Assurance, the State’s insurer of last resort for workers’ compensation insurance, into an independent company. This change was expected to add $100 million to next year’s budget, and more in future years. However, the Administration never worked out the details, and in the end this bill was not introduced, leaving it as a problem for another session.
While several bills passed, many bills failed on surprising vote counts. Below is a summary of the bills that will have the biggest impact on the P&C insurance industry, as well as an overview of relevant bills that did not make it across the finish line this year.
BILLS THAT PASSED
Several key P&C insurance bills passed the General Assembly during the 2025 session. Hall & Evans (H&E) and the P&C insurance industry were able to improve most of these bills, though not all, as they worked their way through the legislative process.
WILDFIRE AND CATASTROPHE
Transparency in Risk Models
The Division of Insurance (DOI) worked in advance of session to gain support for HB 25-1182, Risk Model Use in Property Insurance Policies. Commissioner Michael Conway had expressed skepticism that the wildfire risk model that most P&C insurance carriers currently use produces accurate risk scores. He planned a bill to require the use of one or more risk models that can accurately assess the risk of wildfire at the individual home level (considering any mitigation that had been performed), the community level, and at the state level.
Reps. Kyle Brown (D) and Brianna Titone (D) introduced HB 25-1182 in early February, and H&E began working with the P&C insurance industry on amendments before it was heard in the House Business Affairs & Labor Committee. The House adopted many of the industry’s suggested changes, passing several amendments in Committee and on the House floor. The Senate then amended the bill to ensure it applied only to homeowners’ insurance policies and to policies covering residential condominium properties and multi-family residential properties, but not to all other commercial properties.
HB 25-1182 includes the following new requirements for carriers:
Disclosure Requirements
- Requires insurers using any wildfire or catastrophe model to submit information about the model and its impacts on underwriting and pricing, along with their rate filings, to the DOI:
- Note that these filings are treated as trade secrets and are not subject to disclosure under the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA).
Model Requirements
- Models or underwriting processes must incorporate or account for property-specific mitigation measures and community mitigation actions (but not state-level actions, which were amended out of the bill).
Public Transparency and Policyholder Communications
- Insurers must post on their website:
- Details on premium reductions tied to mitigation; and
- A process for appealing a wildfire risk score.
- Insurers also must give annual written notice to each applicant or policyholder that informs them of:
- Their wildfire risk score or classification;
- Applicable mitigation discounts; and
- Any wildfire-based rate differentials, surcharges, or nonrenewal decisions.
Wildfire Risk Score Timelines
- Insurers must provide applicants with their wildfire risk score within 15 days after the submission of the application;
- For policyholders, the score must be provided in the offer of renewal or the nonrenewal notice; and
- For policyholders or applicants who have completed a property-specific mitigation action or provided evidence of a community-level mitigation action, the score must be provided within 30 days after the submission of a request for a revised wildfire risk score.
Appeal Process
- Policyholders may directly appeal their wildfire risk scores or mitigation discount eligibility.
- Insurers must acknowledge receipt of the appeal within 10 calendar days and respond with a decision within 30 calendar days.
- If the insurer denies the appeal, it must submit its reasoning to the DOI upon request.
Coverage Scope
- HB 25-1182 applies to homeowners’ insurance, residential condominium coverage, multi-family residential housing, and FAIR plan policies.
The bill was sent to the Governor in early May. Governor Polis signed the bill in early June, and it will take effect on August 6, 2025.
FAIR Plan Association Clean-Up
Another bill related to wildfire and catastrophe this session was HB 25-1205, Implement Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plans. This was a clean-up bill to HB 23-1288, which created the FAIR Plan Association to provide P&C insurance coverage when such coverage is not available from admitted carriers.
HB 25-1205 clarifies that the FAIR Plan Association is not a department, unit, agency, political subdivision, or instrumentality of the State of Colorado, or an insurance company or a person engaged in the business of insurance. The bill also grants immunity for any action taken by the Association or its agents in the performance of their powers and duties. The only cause of action against the Association is for breach of contract or breach of the common law covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
This bill moved through the process with little fanfare, passing the General Assembly in early April. Governor Polis signed the bill into law on April 17, and it took effect immediately.
CONSTRUCTION DEFECTS
For the past several years, the Polis Administration and the General Assembly have sought to increase access to affordable housing, in part by reforming laws around construction defect litigation that have led to a shortage of entry-level condominiums being built in Colorado. After conflicting construction defect bills both died in last year’s legislative session, discussions began months before the 2025 session regarding bill ideas to bolster Colorado’s largely nonexistent condominium construction market.
By early October 2024, Commissioner Conway and Rep. Shannon Bird (D) were seeking input from the P&C insurance industry on recommended policy changes that would entice carriers back into the condominium construction market. H&E gathered feedback from carriers and facilitated conversations between the DOI, the bill sponsors, the realtors (who were working closely with Rep. Bird), and the industry.
After significant back-and-forth, we ultimately saw the introduction of HB 25-1272, Construction Defects & Middle Market Housing. The bill seeks to balance protections for homeowners without increasing liabilities on homebuilders to build more affordable housing units in Colorado. Among other changes, the bill:
- Creates the multifamily construction incentive program for builders;
- Establishes a claimant’s duty to mitigate an alleged defect, and tolls the statute of limitations or repose during a claimant’s mitigation of an alleged construction defect;
- Prohibits an insurer from cancelling or denying a liability insurance policy issued to a construction professional based on the professional’s offer to repair or settle a construction defect claim;
- Increases the number of condominium owners who must approve a construction defect claim on behalf of the owners from a majority to 65%; and
- Requires an executive board that is successful in a construction defect claim to first use monetary damages received to repair the construction defect.
HB 25-1272 did not incorporate many of the ideas shared by the industry, and therefore it was not expected to lead to significant changes in the market. The industry took a “monitor” position on the bill, which became law on May 12 and will take effect on August 6, 2025.
The General Assembly also considered three other construction defect bills, but none of these made it across the finish line. Assistant Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon introduced HB 25-1261, Consumers Construction Defect Action, which made it easier for homeowners to sue for construction defects, in part by extending the statute of limitations. The bill sponsor postponed the bill indefinitely, but some of its ideas were incorporated into HB 25-1272, including a requirement that builders provide a claimant with documents related to building plans, soil reports, maintenance recommendations, and insurance.
Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez (D) introduced SB 25-185, Claims Against Construction Professionals. This bill clarified that construction professionals owe an independent tort duty of care to construct residential homes in a non-defective and reasonable manner, and that this duty is owed equally to original and subsequent residential home purchasers. This policy went against the “economic loss rule” outlined in the decision of the Colorado Court of Appeals in Appleby v. Dossey Sudik Structural Engineers LLC, 23CA0008 (Colo. App. 2023).
The bill stated that for purposes of the economic loss rule, the independent duties owed by a construction professional to an original residential purchaser are identical to the independent duties owed by a construction professional to a subsequent residential purchaser. The bill passed the Senate but was laid over in the House, ultimately dying on the calendar.
Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen (R) also introduced a messaging bill on this subject, SB 25-131, Reducing the Cost of Housing. The bill prohibited all construction defect claims unless the claim arose from limited circumstances, including a construction defect that caused actual damage to or loss of real or personal property; or bodily injury or wrongful death. Such a sweeping change to the construction defect litigation environment could never be tolerated by the state’s trial lawyers, as Minority Leader Lundeen knew very well. There was no appetite for this bill in the Democratic-leaning General Assembly, and the sponsor postponed it indefinitely in early May – not without taking the opportunity to argue that a tempered litigation environment would encourage builders and carriers to re-enter the condominium construction market and help solve the state’s affordable housing crisis.
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION
HB 25-1300, Workers’ Compensation Benefits Proof of Entitlement, is a highly problematic bill that managed to make its way through the legislative process and onto the Governor’s desk. The bill provides injured workers control over the selection of their primary treating physician in workers’ compensation cases, allowing them to choose from any level I or level II accredited physician through the Division of Workers’ Compensation. This policy expands the number of physicians that injured workers are able to choose, from four under current law, to over 1,000.
In addition, the bill extends the timeline on changes of physicians, which has the potential to delay diagnosis or treatment for an injured worker. The insurance industry and broader business community expressed concerns that the bill would lead to delays and inconsistency of medical care while increasing litigation and premiums paid by employers.
As introduced, HB 25-1300 also shifted the burden of proof from the claimant in a workers’ compensation claim to the claimant’s employer or insurer. This change would have upended a 100+ year-old legal precedent of mutual defense by shifting the burden of proof on medical treatments to the employer or insurer. Thankfully, the insurance industry and the business community were able to amend out this provision, leaving the status quo.
HB 25-1300 follows in the footsteps of negotiations over physician choice in workers’ compensation that took place in 2014. Those negotiations led to a longstanding agreement between labor and the business community to expand the number of physicians from two to four. This approach balanced a worker’s flexibility to choose his or her own doctor but prevented abuse of the system (as well as overabundance of choice). With HB 25-1300, not only did the bill sponsors obliterate the existing paradigm, but they also rushed a bill that had undergone very little stakeholding with the business community.
Ultimately, the bill passed along party lines. While there was some hope that Governor Polis would veto the bill, ultimately, he signed the bill into law on June 4. Governor Polis issued a corresponding signing statement calling for the creation of a working group to develop recommendations around the implementation of the bill and legislation for the 2026 legislative session.
Governor Polis encouraged the working group to consider all topics raised by opponents and proponents, and specifically address:
- The permissibility of in-house clinics that employ level I or level II accredited physicians as an option available to injured workers;
- That nothing precludes an employer or insurer from selecting any number of level I or level II accredited physicians to provide as a list of recommendations;
- The functionality of the DWC’s provider directory and clarifications around appropriate provider types to serve as a designated provider;
- The accreditation process for providers, including DWC tracking of licensure and malpractice status;
- The applicability of the premium credit described in the Division of Insurance’s Amended Regulation 5-1-1 Section 5(E);
- Any timelines, including designation of and change of physician, or other legislative provisions to ensure workers receive prompt care; and
- Identify mechanisms to lower costs; and
- Address the proposal to modernize and privatize Pinnacol Assurance.
The new law will take effect on January 1, 2028, and applies to workers’ compensation claims filed on or after that date.
REGULATORY MODERNIZATION
The General Assembly also passed model legislation, SB 25-058, Insurance Rebate Reform Model Act, which modernizes the law concerning insurance rebates by recognizing new insurance products while maintaining necessary consumer protections.
The bill, as introduced, mirrored the NCOIL model act, which the proponents preferred. However, Commissioner Conway preferred the NAIC model act on rebates over the NCOIL model. Accordingly, the bill proponents replaced the language in the bill with the Rebates subsection (subsection H) of the NAIC model law. They also removed the words “free” or “no cost” as it relates to advertising to customers or clarifying that such prohibition does not apply to loss mitigation products or services.
SB 25-058 passed and was signed into law in April and will take effect on August 6, 2025.
LEGAL SYSTEM REFORMS
Price Gouging
A bill seeking to address the high cost of living in Colorado met an interesting fate that ultimately did not affect the insurance industry. Reps. Kyle Brown (D) and Yara Zokaie (D) introduced HB 25-1010, Prohibiting Price Gouging in Sales of Necessities. As introduced, the bill created a presumption of price gouging if the price of a necessity increased by 10% or more above its average cost over the preceding 90 days. It defined “necessities” as goods or services that are necessary for the health, safety, and welfare of consumers.
Given that insurance policies could arguably be included under this broad definition, H&E sought an amendment to exclude insurance companies from the bill. The sponsors agreed, but the bill was held up while negotiations took place between the sponsors and the Governor, who did not support the bill. Ultimately, the Governor’s Office struck a deal with the bill sponsors, essentially replacing the bill in a way that does not significantly change how Colorado’s price gouging laws currently impact the insurance industry. The bill now provides that after the Governor declares a disaster emergency, it is price gouging if the price of a good or service listed in Section 6-7-730(2), C.R.S., increases by 10% or more above its price before the disaster. The list of goods or services in the referenced section of statute includes building materials, consumer food items, emergency supplies; fuel; and medical supplies. It does not impact insurance companies. HB 25-1010 became law in early May and goes into effect on August 6, 2025.
Compliance with Requests of Policies
H&E worked with the trial bar to improve a bill that had the potential to open the door to unnecessary litigation or fees. HB 25-1322, Enforce Insurer Compliance Requests Insurance Policy, concerns a homeowner’s insurance carrier’s duty to comply with a policyholder’s request for a copy of his or her insurance policy. The bill maintains the requirement in current law that a carrier must share a certified copy of homeowner’s insurance policy within 30 calendar days after a written request from the policyholder. The bill clarifies that the written request must be received by the carrier’s registered agent. The bill then adds a fine: failing to provide the requested certified copy amounts to a penalty of $50 per day after the 30-day window.
Hall & Evans sought feedback from the industry and advocated that the request for a copy of the insurance policy be submitted to the carrier’s registered agent to minimize the chances that such a request would fall through the cracks and lead to the accrual of unnecessary fees. This requirement was modeled after HB 19-1283, a 2019 law on auto policies which imposes $100 per day for failure to comply, twice the amount imposed by HB 25-1300. The bill passed late in session and was signed by the Governor in early June. It will go into effect on August 6, 2025.
Foreign Third-Party Litigation Funding
One bill that received attention for its unlikely combination of far-left and moderate-right bill sponsors was HB 25-1329, Foreign Third-Party Litigation Financing. The bill was brought by the Colorado Chamber of Commerce and requires that a foreign third-party funder that enters into a litigation financing agreement disclose certain information to the Colorado Attorney General, among other requirements. The bill sponsors were Rep. Javier Mabrey (D) and Sen. Julie Gonzales (D), far-left legislators who both served as Chairs of the Judiciary Committee in their respective chambers; and Rep. Matt Soper (R) and Sen. Lisa Frizell (R), moderate Republicans who also saw foreign third-party litigation funding to be a problem.
Although it was introduced late in the session, this bill enjoyed broad support in the General Assembly and passed handily in the last days of session. It became law in early June and will take effect on August 6, 2025.
IMPORTANT P&C POLICIES THAT FAILED OR WERE NOT INTRODUCED
Stepping back to reflect on how P&C insurance legislation fared this session, it is evident that the insurance industry had several important wins. Legislators who sought to reform the P&C insurance industry introduced many significant bills this session, often in lockstep with Commissioner Conway and the DOI. Governor Polis also made clear that several of the biggest P&C insurance bills were top priorities this session, especially the conversion of Pinnacol. However, in key instances, the bill sponsors and the DOI failed to convince the General Assembly that their ideas would lower costs for everyday Coloradans. Combined with strategic negotiations on the part of H&E and the P&C insurance industry, the biggest P&C insurance bills failed to make it across the finish line this session.
Homeowners’ Insurance Enterprises
The first of these large, failed bills was HB 25-1302, Increase Access Homeowner’s Insurance Enterprises. The DOI and the bill sponsors, Speaker Julie McCluskie (D) and Rep. Kyle Brown (D), began sharing outlines of an idea months before the session began, although we did not actually see a draft on bill paper until halfway through the session. As introduced, this bill created two enterprise funds, with one designed to incentivize the purchase of hail resistant roofs and the other designed to administer a wildfire reinsurance program. The bill also included a loss ratio requirement for homeowners’ insurance. Of note, the bill did not include a requirement for DOI to approve rates for homeowners’ insurance prior to an insurer using such rates, as Commissioner Conway had indicated it would.
As soon as the bill was introduced, H&E began leading negotiations with Commissioner Conway, who indicated he was willing to compromise on key points of the bill. We worked in good faith with the DOI to reach a compromise before the bill’s first hearing in the House Finance Committee. At that time, the sponsors passed ten amendments that modified the bill in various ways, including:
- Removal of the loss cost ratio requirement;
- Favorable changes to the makeup of the enterprise boards;
- Reduction of the amount of the hail fee from 1.5% to .25% and the wildfire fee to .5% of premium;
- Removal of authorization for the enterprise to sell catastrophe bonds;
- Removal of authorizing utilities to purchase bonds and requiring insurers to hold utilities harmless for any losses; and
- An option for insurers to offer a replacement-cost policy with a reasonable coverage limit or percentage cap for additional living expenses if the insurer provides a premium decrease for the coverage limit or percentage cap.
In exchange for these amendments, the P&C industry agreed to remain opposed to the bill on paper but not to lobby against it on the House floor or in the Senate. However, as the session reached its final days, the bill began to lose favor with members of the Senate Finance Committee. Members of both parties had issues with raising fees on policyholders at a time when their constituents were concerned about the ever-increasing cost of living in Colorado. The Senate Finance Committee heard witness testimony on May 1 but laid over the bill for action only while the sponsors and DOI tried to get the votes. To his credit, Commissioner Conway did not go back on the deal he had made with the P&C insurance industry, so no further amendments were offered. It quickly became apparent that the bill did not have a chance of passage, and on May 6, the second-to-last day of session, Senate Finance voted 2-6 to kill the bill. It is noteworthy that in addition to Republican opposition, both the progressive and moderate Democrats on the Committee voted to kill the bill.
Motor Vehicle Crash Prevention Enterprise
Another enterprise bill that met a similar fate but for different reasons was HB 25-1303, Funding for Motor Vehicle Collision Prevention. This bill created an enterprise to fund a per-policy crash prevention fee aimed at reducing vehicle collisions with pedestrians and wildlife. Once again, H&E worked in good faith with the bill proponents to reach a compromise on the House side in exchange for agreeing not to lobby against the bill in the Senate. The House compromise made several changes that the industry could live with:
- Delay of implementation of the crash prevention fee from January 1, 2026, to July 1, 2026;
- Removal of provision requiring the fee to annually increase with the rate of inflation;
- Reduction of the fee from $3.50 to $3.00 per vehicle.
However, once the bill made it to the Senate, it became clear that Senate Finance had a problem with charging all auto policyholders a fee that would only benefit some, increasing insurance premiums and therefore cost of living. Unlike with HB 1302, in this case the Senate bill sponsors reneged on the deal that had been struck in the House. Sens. Faith Winter (D) and Dylan Roberts (D) began shopping amendment ideas that included requiring carriers to conduct a means test so that only policyholders who met a certain income threshold would be required to pay the fee. This approach would have been completely unworkable, but the bigger problem was that the sponsors had gone back on the deal. Since the deal was off, H&E and the industry began lobbying against the bill, which ultimately died in Senate Finance on April 29.
Pinnacol Conversion
In addition, an effort to convert Pinnacol Assurance into a private company did not move forward this session. In November 2024, Governor Polis released his budget recommendations for FY 2025-26. To balance the budget, he proposed a “conversion” of Pinnacol, which would have allowed Pinnacol to write coverage in other states and write other lines of insurance in exchange for a payment of $100 million in Year 1 and additional payments over a 5-year period to PERA (the State’s retirement plan). The Governor’s proposal implied that after the conversion, “Pinnacol would start paying state and federal taxes, which would improve the state budget and reduce the level of cuts during the next recession and should help place Pinnacol on par with its competitors.” Details in the proposal were left intentionally vague with the expectation that the Joint Budget Committee and/or the General Assembly would work alongside stakeholders – including the insurance industry – to flesh out specifics in a bill draft.
From the beginning, H&E led the conversation on the priorities of the insurance industry, stressing that the industry would support actual privatization so long as Pinnacol was truly placed on a level playing field with other regulated insurance carriers writing business in the State. We emphasized the importance of Pinnacol paying federal and state taxes and discussed options to address the residual market (although there was little evidence that a residual market for workers’ compensation claims exists in Colorado).
A bill draft was finally shared in late February. H&E met with the Governor’s staff to negotiate details, including the path forward for identifying the insurer of last resort.
On March 19, the JBC decided against moving forward with the Pinnacol privatization proposal to balance the FY 25-26 budget. While the JBC’s decision did not preclude a legislator from introducing a bill to privatize Pinnacol, that did not ultimately happen. While the General Assembly did not act on this proposal during the 2025 regular session, we expect this issue to come back up in future sessions, given that Colorado will likely face a similar budget shortfall in the years to come.
Regional Home Office Premium Tax Credit
Yet another effort to penalize the insurance industry was defeated before the end of the session. In early March, Reps. Lorena Garcia (D) and Yara Zokaie (D) introduced HB 25-1296, Tax Expenditure Adjustment, which contained a section that increased the amount of a company’s total domestic workforce that must be based in Colorado for a company to qualify for the regional home office (RHO) premium tax credit. This policy proposal had been tucked away in the Governor’s November budget proposal but did not come to light until the introduction of this bill.
The provision was hugely problematic because it directly violated a deal struck between the General Assembly and the insurance industry in 2021 to preserve the RHO premium tax credit. That deal, phased in over a three-year period, raised the percentage of a company’s domestic workforce that must be based in Colorado. The full deal had only gone into effect last year, but now the sponsors were attempting to increase the percentage from 2.5% to 7%, a threshold that would be virtually impossible to meet for large, national insurance carriers. To make matters worse, one of the legislators who struck the 2021 deal was then Rep. Mike Weissman (D), who was now the Senate sponsor of HB 25-1296.
By late March, H&E, along with the P&C insurance industry and business community, was heavily involved in negotiations with the Governor’s staff. The Governor initially proposed compromising on a percentage lower than 7%, but the industry held firm and focused efforts on lobbying to defeat the bill in the House Finance Committee. When it became clear that the House Finance Committee would not pass the bill with this provision, the Governor agreed to remove the section of the bill related to the RHO premium tax credit altogether. This agreement infuriated the bill sponsors, who threatened to eliminate the RHO premium tax credit entirely next year. Regardless of what the future holds, for now, the RHO premium tax credit remains intact.
Referred Amendment, Child Sex Abuse
For the second year in a row, Senator Jessie Danielson (D) brought a referred Constitutional amendment, SCR 25-002, Child Sex Abuse Accountability Amendment, which would allow the General Assembly to pass retrospective laws that permit a victim of sexual abuse that occurred while the victim was a minor to bring a civil claim for sexual abuse at any time.
Although the topic itself is highly difficult and evokes sympathy for individual victims, it is an issue of fairness that institutions like schools, children’s camps, and church groups – and the companies that insured them – should be held to the rules they operated under at the time, rather than be subject to a change of rules that reaches back in time. The 2021 General Assembly passed a bill to retrospectively eliminate the statute of limitations on claims of child sexual abuse, and in 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court found that law to violate the state Constitution.
This year, as last year, the referred amendment passed out of the Senate State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee, but failed on the Senate floor. Resolutions require a two-thirds majority vote, not just a simple majority, so the 12 Republican Senators held firm, and the resolution died along party lines.
Senator Danielson immediately followed up this defeat with a fundraising email to gather enough signatures to place the amendment on the ballot. Thus, while we may see the issue come back as a voter-referred Constitutional amendment in 2026, the insurance industry may need to rely on Senate Republicans to once again block it next year if another resolution comes back through the General Assembly.
Disclosure of Climate Emissions
Finally, HB 25-1119, Require Disclosures of Climate Emissions, would have required entities, including insurers, with total revenues exceeding $1 billion to publicly disclose their total greenhouse gas emissions during the preceding calendar year. Thankfully, the bill failed in its first committee of reference.
Rep. Manny Rutinel, a Democrat who is running for Congress, introduced the bill as a messaging opportunity for climate activism. The bill included a complex regime of scope 1, scope2, and scope 3 emissions, which the P&C insurance industry and business community lobbied against due to difficulty of implementation. The bill would have allowed the Attorney General to fine an entity up to $100,000 per day of noncompliance.
Even members of Rep. Rutinel’s own party found these provisions to be too far-fetched, and the House Energy & Environment Committee killed the bill by a vote of 5-8.
If you have any questions about this update, please contact Daniel Furman or Erin Snow.